Saturday, July 28, 2007

Well, the exodus has begun. Three people have quit in the last two weeks. At least two more are getting ready to hand in their resignation. We're all looking around wondering who's next. Pretty soon people will be getting stuck in the doorways as they all try to get out at the same time: Larry Moe and Curly style.

Management has finally begun scratching their heads. Gee, I wonder why people are leaving? Evil Medchem director actually asked people to come see him about problems with the department. That would be an interesting conversation. Evil one: "So what's the matter? Why is everyone quitting?" Me: "You're the problem. Everyone is leaving because you are a dishonest a-hole and you treat people like crap." Somehow I think he won't be too eager to fix the problem when he finds out he is the problem. Go fire yourself.

Of course we could go talk to the evil Vice President of drug discovery. He hired evil medchem director, and three other senior managers without input from anyone else. Yeah boss, the problem is your hand-picked minions from your last company are all turds.

I'm trying to decide if I should try to ride this limping company until the IPO sometime in the future, or if I should find a new gig now. I am keeping a close eye on the rats in the DMPK lab. Once they start abandoning ship, I'm outta here.

Sunday, July 1, 2007

Never ask how things could be worse. When I did, we hired a new director of med chem. We suspected it would be bad when the first thing he said to the department was “I’m the boss so everyone will do exactly what I tell them to.” Turns out he really was not joking.

He came from another company that had a reputation for hiring lots of H1B chemists and using the threat of deportation to squeeze as much life force from them as possible. Basically he’s the guy who loves being in charge and thinks himself always right. I might even be okay with that if he knew what he was doing. Clearly he doesn't. Why did I bother to get a PhD just to be told what targets I must make and what reactions I must use to make them?

Now he’s trying to antagonize people at our company. I don’t know if he actually wants to fire people so he can bring in more ‘motivated’ labor, or if he just likes flaunting his authority.Everyone is trying to cover their own asses while he runs our most important project straight into the ground. I'm just trying to keep my mouth shut. Right now I’m torn between looking for another job, or sticking it out until the company goes public.